I've read this forum a lot but this is my first post so I just wanted to start off by saying thanks for all of the knowledge you have shared on here.
I am a young architect considering the architect developer path just trying to soak up any insight I can find. I am really curious why there aren't more architect developers - it seems like an obvious career pivot that can empower an architect to fully realize their vision of improving the built environment while also making a lot more money. I have generated estimated pro formas for several buildings where I was able to get cost data and I am routinely seeing profit margins of 25% and greater which is obviously a lot of money. Also the architect developer projects tend to be far more creative because you don't have some conservative developer with poor taste calling the shots. So can anyone speak to why more architects aren't doing this?
Also I am looking for any resources that you guys might know of. I am aware of Jonathan Segal and John Portman but outside of that it seems difficult to find knowledge besides going a masters degree or working for a developer. Please share whatever you know!!
If anyone else is looking to take this path I'd love to connect and talk as well.
Thanks, James
Gang Chen, Author, AIA, LEED AP BD+C
Oct 14, 14 4:14 pm
Carrera,
Great info. Thanks for sharing!
Gang Chen, Author, AIA, LEED AP BD+C
pale shelter
Oct 16, 14 11:15 am
Carerra: when you say CM; I assume you mean construction management, correct?
Also; Carerra: I admire your entrepreneurship and stories... the struggle I'm having is how to get into the 8 to 12+ unit (condo quality) multi-family housing for rent construction. We are building plenty of 200+ unit buildings in my downtown and at my office, but I'm interested in the right scale, real urban feel, townhouse, walkable neighborhood quality housing projects for middle/upper class........I'm sounding like an architect aren't I? I ask you, because one of your first projects may have been that suburban lot converted to a car dealership. With all due respect to you (and to my current employer who does a lot of suburbia housing)... I just can't do suburbia. I'm on a mission to do the exact opposite. It's terrible out here, uninspiring and zero-culture. (only car culture). I assume i'm speaking to the choir.
Point is: suburban land and development is cheap and easier to get into...Obviously it's not as easy to get into the more urban core neighborhoods ($$). This takes more $$ and partnerships I can only assume for someone like me with no cash or equity to borrow against... I can only assume the path is the start small - build equity - scale up move. Find an existing 4-plex and move up from there.... ahhhh patience.
Carrera
Oct 16, 14 12:05 pm
Pale shelter, Yes CM is construction management.
I don’t think it matters where anything is. What you yearn for is difficult though, you can’t take 14 one-year leases to a bank as equity. Do you think I yearned to be a car dealer architect? I spent most of my career in historical restoration and adaptive reuse. You have to start somewhere, anywhere to get going and it doesn’t matter where that is – initially. If your burning desire is city then look to the City for opportunities. Where I live I can get a building for a Dollar…and that may be a house to start. The thing is about us is that we know how to solve problems and see things that nobody else sees….that’s equity.
What about a group of houses on different streets that back up to each other – tied together in the back with a common court using common materials and colors to tie it all together into a rental complex…..it’s those kind of things that we bring to the table…doing one house is flipping, doing 4+ is adaptive reuse. If you could find a group of houses and created a site drawing of an architectural solution, the City would throw those houses at you. You use all 4 houses as equity to develop #1. Then the new value of the first finished house + 3 unfinished to do #2….until you’re done….Voila! You’re a developer!
x-jla
Oct 16, 14 2:42 pm
Pale shelter, the plight of suburbia is the very reason why you should keep an open mind about engaging it. There are far more opportunities in this realm and they are far more accessible like you stated. One of the biggest problems with architects as developers IMO is that they take the academically "safe route". Developers take the financially "safe route". Both of these approaches fail to really Create profit from problem solving. The problems of suburbia are business opportunities.
pale shelter
Oct 16, 14 3:31 pm
I completely disagree. We may be not talking about the same thing. I"m talking about sprawl 3rd-tier locations (asphalt paradise)...some suburbs have downtown historic centers; those have potential.
I"m rooted in the suburbs currently with my developer boss; but I act as developer for him in multi-family urban (city limits) housing projects. THe problems of suburbia are beyond fixing; I can't agree with you jla-x. Long term the asphalt oasis of sprawl is the eventual slum land of the future... the poor will live in sprawl...we've already measured this and currently see the flux of growth and $$ working back towards the city center. Rental projects for millennials and senior housing are fighting for land in urban locations ((seniors want to walk to restaurants and cultural buildings... vs. getting driving vertigo meandering around the mazes of asphalt and curb cuts of frontage roads and strip mall parking lots))... *Case in point; hedge fund investment groups have interest in our urban 200-unit projects and are willing to pay $$$ for it... no interest in the sprawl projects...*Case in point; my previous arch firm, all the multi-family projects of urban location found funding ... suburban projects were shelved.... Plus; many developers are fighting for transit funds and TIF incentives (only happens in urban locations).
I believe that successful cities have growth boundaries set in place; sometimes these are by law (urban planning, transit plans, density, etc); others are physical barriers / natural borders / landlocked.. I'm probably a little disgruntled after recently getting back from an Amsterdam and central Europe trip. Maybe studying in Rome screwed me over also...
I believe more architects should get into development for the sake of owning more of the built environment... we have more of our education and understanding of good environment and urban culture (that means walkable, dense, diverse uses)... The outer tier sprawl wal-mart frontage road mcdonalds-cookie cutter houses are non-culture... and I think a reason for this dumb country is partially because of this non-culture. ((bit off a tangent here))
x-jla
Oct 16, 14 5:29 pm
I agree that sprawl sucks but disagree that the solution is to simply increase density at the urban core. It is a very very big misnomer that this will create healthier cities.
x-jla
Oct 16, 14 5:55 pm
Actually I think this design for density paradigm is probably going to be seen as the greatest failure of this generation of architects because density is not the cause of urban health but rather the result of urban health...we are looking at this from the wrong angle....but that's another topic.
Here is an interview with 2 young and interesting Spanish architects who transformed their architecture business into a real estate business that is giving them a lot of freedom, saving them from stress, from deadlines, and from the pressure of clients. These days they buy, transform and sell on average 12 apartments per year in and around Barcelona.
Step 2: Develop a good reputation and be in business for at least 15 - 20 years.
Alt Step 2a: Be wealthy to begin with
Alt Step 2b: Marry into wealth
Step 3: Using the money you have saved by being frugal over the years/aquired by other means, invest in real estate and start getting passive income from your investments.
Step 4: Re-invest that income into new properties you aquire while providing architectural services.
Alt Step 4: Outsource everything but the design work to other firms who actually will be doing all the production and grunt work.
patriqredemi
Jan 24, 18 11:27 am
Hello everyone!
It is a great opportunity for me to read all your comments and I commend all your wealth if knowledge on the subject matter - Architect/Developer.
Can you recommend books that can be very educative on the matter as well as any material, web page, etc.
I would like to study them as I'm convinced this is the way to go.
Thanks peeps!
Non Sequitur
Jan 24, 18 11:29 am
apply to an accredited university
greenlander1
Jan 27, 18 12:41 pm
take a couple real estate finance classes and you can scrounge youtube and find some decent tutorials if you are willing to poke around. Not much different than classes at a university and free!
after a couple minutes of searching found this guy,
received a copy of this last week, unfortunately haven't had a chance to o
pen it yet.
DJ7910
Feb 25, 18 7:58 pm
Sorry to add to this and loads of other comments I may not have read.
It seems to me that we get an up tick in the talk of - Architects as Developers- when we're getting close to the top of an over built real estate market. This is also showing up in the number of housing flipping shows and when you start hearing folks saying they can't believe how much so and so down the street got for his house.... be careful.
archinine
Feb 26, 18 10:45 pm
Johnson the market is not over built when taken as a whole. Luxury housing is definitely in over supply. But there is a dearth of entry level and middle income priced housing which is why we’re seeing a steel decline in first time buyers and bidding wars over fixer uppers. While the prices may be overvalued for what’s available, there is hardly a surplus of affordable homes.
Developer doesn’t have to be equatable to luxury units. Maybe it’s high time the architects step up to find ways to build decent buildings that they themselves could afford to live in. Seems so many are ok with a razor thin profit, who better to serve the bottom three quintiles of the market.
Hi everyone,
I've read this forum a lot but this is my first post so I just wanted to start off by saying thanks for all of the knowledge you have shared on here.
I am a young architect considering the architect developer path just trying to soak up any insight I can find. I am really curious why there aren't more architect developers - it seems like an obvious career pivot that can empower an architect to fully realize their vision of improving the built environment while also making a lot more money. I have generated estimated pro formas for several buildings where I was able to get cost data and I am routinely seeing profit margins of 25% and greater which is obviously a lot of money. Also the architect developer projects tend to be far more creative because you don't have some conservative developer with poor taste calling the shots. So can anyone speak to why more architects aren't doing this?
Also I am looking for any resources that you guys might know of. I am aware of Jonathan Segal and John Portman but outside of that it seems difficult to find knowledge besides going a masters degree or working for a developer. Please share whatever you know!!
If anyone else is looking to take this path I'd love to connect and talk as well.
Thanks,
James
Carrera,
Great info. Thanks for sharing!
Gang Chen, Author, AIA, LEED AP BD+C
Carerra: when you say CM; I assume you mean construction management, correct?
Also; Carerra: I admire your entrepreneurship and stories... the struggle I'm having is how to get into the 8 to 12+ unit (condo quality) multi-family housing for rent construction. We are building plenty of 200+ unit buildings in my downtown and at my office, but I'm interested in the right scale, real urban feel, townhouse, walkable neighborhood quality housing projects for middle/upper class........I'm sounding like an architect aren't I? I ask you, because one of your first projects may have been that suburban lot converted to a car dealership. With all due respect to you (and to my current employer who does a lot of suburbia housing)... I just can't do suburbia. I'm on a mission to do the exact opposite. It's terrible out here, uninspiring and zero-culture. (only car culture). I assume i'm speaking to the choir.
Point is: suburban land and development is cheap and easier to get into...Obviously it's not as easy to get into the more urban core neighborhoods ($$). This takes more $$ and partnerships I can only assume for someone like me with no cash or equity to borrow against... I can only assume the path is the start small - build equity - scale up move. Find an existing 4-plex and move up from there.... ahhhh patience.
Pale shelter, Yes CM is construction management.
I don’t think it matters where anything is. What you yearn for is difficult though, you can’t take 14 one-year leases to a bank as equity. Do you think I yearned to be a car dealer architect? I spent most of my career in historical restoration and adaptive reuse. You have to start somewhere, anywhere to get going and it doesn’t matter where that is – initially. If your burning desire is city then look to the City for opportunities. Where I live I can get a building for a Dollar…and that may be a house to start. The thing is about us is that we know how to solve problems and see things that nobody else sees….that’s equity.
What about a group of houses on different streets that back up to each other – tied together in the back with a common court using common materials and colors to tie it all together into a rental complex…..it’s those kind of things that we bring to the table…doing one house is flipping, doing 4+ is adaptive reuse. If you could find a group of houses and created a site drawing of an architectural solution, the City would throw those houses at you. You use all 4 houses as equity to develop #1. Then the new value of the first finished house + 3 unfinished to do #2….until you’re done….Voila! You’re a developer!
Pale shelter, the plight of suburbia is the very reason why you should keep an open mind about engaging it. There are far more opportunities in this realm and they are far more accessible like you stated. One of the biggest problems with architects as developers IMO is that they take the academically "safe route". Developers take the financially "safe route". Both of these approaches fail to really Create profit from problem solving. The problems of suburbia are business opportunities.
I completely disagree. We may be not talking about the same thing. I"m talking about sprawl 3rd-tier locations (asphalt paradise)...some suburbs have downtown historic centers; those have potential.
I"m rooted in the suburbs currently with my developer boss; but I act as developer for him in multi-family urban (city limits) housing projects. THe problems of suburbia are beyond fixing; I can't agree with you jla-x. Long term the asphalt oasis of sprawl is the eventual slum land of the future... the poor will live in sprawl...we've already measured this and currently see the flux of growth and $$ working back towards the city center. Rental projects for millennials and senior housing are fighting for land in urban locations ((seniors want to walk to restaurants and cultural buildings... vs. getting driving vertigo meandering around the mazes of asphalt and curb cuts of frontage roads and strip mall parking lots))... *Case in point; hedge fund investment groups have interest in our urban 200-unit projects and are willing to pay $$$ for it... no interest in the sprawl projects...*Case in point; my previous arch firm, all the multi-family projects of urban location found funding ... suburban projects were shelved.... Plus; many developers are fighting for transit funds and TIF incentives (only happens in urban locations).
I believe that successful cities have growth boundaries set in place; sometimes these are by law (urban planning, transit plans, density, etc); others are physical barriers / natural borders / landlocked.. I'm probably a little disgruntled after recently getting back from an Amsterdam and central Europe trip. Maybe studying in Rome screwed me over also...
I believe more architects should get into development for the sake of owning more of the built environment... we have more of our education and understanding of good environment and urban culture (that means walkable, dense, diverse uses)... The outer tier sprawl wal-mart frontage road mcdonalds-cookie cutter houses are non-culture... and I think a reason for this dumb country is partially because of this non-culture. ((bit off a tangent here))
I agree that sprawl sucks but disagree that the solution is to simply increase density at the urban core. It is a very very big misnomer that this will create healthier cities.
Actually I think this design for density paradigm is probably going to be seen as the greatest failure of this generation of architects because density is not the cause of urban health but rather the result of urban health...we are looking at this from the wrong angle....but that's another topic.
Architect as Developer is a natural transition. See article in MarketWatch. http://www.marketwatch.com/story/new-breed-of-real-estate-developers-worldwide-2015-09-29
Hello Michael Abrams! Welcome to the party!
Here is an interview with 2 young and interesting Spanish architects who transformed their architecture business into a real estate business that is giving them a lot of freedom, saving them from stress, from deadlines, and from the pressure of clients. These days they buy, transform and sell on average 12 apartments per year in and around Barcelona.
http://blog.archisnapper.com/from-architects-to-real-estate-developers-with-alex-and-esther-from-barcelona/
Step 1: Have your own firm and limit expenses.
Step 2: Develop a good reputation and be in business for at least 15 - 20 years.
Alt Step 2a: Be wealthy to begin with
Alt Step 2b: Marry into wealth
Step 3: Using the money you have saved by being frugal over the years/aquired by other means, invest in real estate and start getting passive income from your investments.
Step 4: Re-invest that income into new properties you aquire while providing architectural services.
Alt Step 4: Outsource everything but the design work to other firms who actually will be doing all the production and grunt work.
Hello everyone!
It is a great opportunity for me to read all your comments and I commend all your wealth if knowledge on the subject matter - Architect/Developer.
Can you recommend books that can be very educative on the matter as well as any material, web page, etc.
I would like to study them as I'm convinced this is the way to go.
Thanks peeps!
apply to an accredited university
take a couple real estate finance classes and you can scrounge youtube and find some decent tutorials if you are willing to poke around. Not much different than classes at a university and free!
after a couple minutes of searching found this guy,
Joshua Kahr
https://www.youtube.com/channe...This looks promising: Architect & Developer
https://www.amazon.com/Architect-Developer-Guide-Self-Initiating-Projects/dp/1981231560
received a copy of this last week, unfortunately haven't had a chance to o pen it yet.
Sorry to add to this and loads of other comments I may not have read.
It seems to me that we get an up tick in the talk of - Architects as Developers- when we're getting close to the top of an over built real estate market. This is also showing up in the number of housing flipping shows and when you start hearing folks saying they can't believe how much so and so down the street got for his house.... be careful.
Johnson the market is not over built when taken as a whole. Luxury housing is definitely in over supply. But there is a dearth of entry level and middle income priced housing which is why we’re seeing a steel decline in first time buyers and bidding wars over fixer uppers. While the prices may be overvalued for what’s available, there is hardly a surplus of affordable homes.
Developer doesn’t have to be equatable to luxury units. Maybe it’s high time the architects step up to find ways to build decent buildings that they themselves could afford to live in. Seems so many are ok with a razor thin profit, who better to serve the bottom three quintiles of the market.